It's no secret: we find ourselves in the middle of another acoustic-guitar boom.
Everyone, it seems, has come un-plugged --albeit in a plugged-in sort of way. Once again,
the mass musical culture seems to be escaping from a pervasive state of wired, hyper-loud
adolescent self-indulgence and turning to the more serene, sophisticated sensuality of the
acoustic guitar.

The last wave of mass-culture to subside peaked with very loud rock and roll,
rat-biting, and huge arena performances filled with snarling electric guitars and
adolescent intensity. Acoustic guitars were for wimps. Now, even the most extreme electric
guitar slasher can be seen displaying their "sensitive" sides-- with acoustic
guitars. Incipient burn-out, perhaps? MTV --arbiter of the musically worthwhile for the
young masses-- has given the acoustic guitar its approving nod. Eric Clapton performs his
once-screaming "Layla" on a Martin, at Valium tempo. Now acoustic guitar sales
are rivalling electrics in virtually every shopping mall across the country. Something is
going on here, but do you know what it is?

Ironically, the acoustic guitar had to be plugged in --for this new wave of musicians
to play "unplugged." This all had to wait for acoustic-guitar pickup-technology
to come of age. Nagging feedback and that shrill, honky sound which contact pickups used
to make are gone from the scene.Transducers, internal microphones and onboard pre-amps
have allowed these delicate wooden boxes to hold their own on stage with the more muscular
electric guitars-- and still sound clear and true.

The expanding market for acoustic guitars has also provided fertile soil for a minute
sub-section of the industry: the hand-crafting of individually-made guitars by independent
makers. Coincident with the larger wave of interest in the acoustic guitar, the ancient
trade of luthiery is experiencing an un-precedented resurgence. There are more-- and
better--makers than ever before. They are selling more guitars to a wider variety of
guitarists than ever before. "Finally, it's well-known that individually-handcrafted
guitars are different from factory guitars, and that the difference has value," says
Vermont luthier Michael Millard. "In the last ten years, it has become quite clear
that there are small shops that are building instruments that are at least equal or
superior to the best production instruments--and these are highly personalized in terms of
voicing, ornamentation and function." Toronto luthier Grit Laskin adds,
"performers are going to their local makers more than they used to, as evidenced by
what they are seen playing on stage and in the media. Our whole culture is shifting
values, moving away from over- produced, electric sound. People are tired of it. At the
same time, in a recessive economy, people who still have money to spend, are forced to
spend it differently. More often than ever, that difference entails going to one person to
have something built, rather than to an arms- length retail store.

Another cause for this intensified interest in individually-made instruments, as
archtop luthier John Monteleone puts it, is the fact that now "there are many more
different sub-groupings of music, and the idea of musical boundaries is fading--so what
you have is a more intense search for new and different tools by performers--for things
that work for them and make them look good."

In the classical guitar field, Alan Chapman describes the boom from his own
perspective: "There are more conservatory-trained instrumentalists, and a higher
general level of playing. The proficiency level of the average recitalist has soared.
There used to be only a few people playing the most difficult pieces, and now a far
greater number of people are handling a far more difficult repertoire. The classic market
is broader: non-classical artists such as country, and jazz cross-overs are using
classical guitars, as are world-beat and improvisational New Age players. Teachers are
better, instruments are consistently better: the field has grown up."

The slice of the larger market being cut away by the luthier trade is now significant
enough to make the larger producers pay attention. Once dismissed as copy-cats and
"woodworking lightweights," luthiers have come to hold a position of high regard
and prestige within the larger industry. Like Michael Gurian, they consult with the
largest factories on esoteric technical matters. Like Dana Burgeois, they develop acoustic
guitars for electric guitar companies. Like Michael Millard, they are hired to design
"luthier-inspired" guitars for large japanese and multi-national guitar
companies. Like Danny Ferrington and Jimmy D'Aquisto, their signatures appear on
big-factory guitars that are made by the thousands. Factory CEO's and shop managers attend
guitar- maker's conventions now, interested in the latest from this small group of
dedicated artisans. In growing numbers, hand-builders are being seen challenging the large
producers for the high-ground--the avant-garde of the guitar industry. The growing
interest in individually-made guitars points to a new sophistication on the part of the
guitar-buying public. The way Toronto luthier Grit Laskin sees it, guitarists are taking
the time to consider individually-crafted guitars "because they're smart. They've
heard it from others, that a well-made, hand-built guitar can always supersede it's
production-line cousin. Besides, the pleasure of dealing personally with the human being
who is going to construct something specifically for you, is a significant plus..."
What was once insider's lore is now out in the open, everyday knowledge: that yes, you can
get a fine, professional-grade guitar from the top-name factories (indeed, Martin and
Gibson are now making acoustic guitars as good or even better than they ever did), but if
your own musical or playing requirements can't be met by what is generally available; if
you want something that no one else has; if you want your instrument to be noticed; you
must have one made--just for you, by a luthier. "They're tired of looking," say
arch-top luthier John Monteleone, "for the most part, customers will express that
they want the last instrument that they'll have to buy."

THE DAWN OF MODERN-DAY AMERICAN HAND-BUILDING

There are now far more opportunities for the average guitarist to come into contact
with individually-made guitars, and more places to buy them. Not always so, however:
thirty years ago, just before the first big acoustic-guitar boom, guitar-makers were a
small, hardy, secretive, no-nonsense bunch of professional tradesmen. It wasn't art then,
it was a living. Nevertheless, like Pinoccio's maker, Gepetto, they could make the dead
wood talk. During the sixties, most of those musical Gepettoes worked within a single
square mile in New York City. They built guitars exclusively for hard-working studio
guitarists and recitalists--for a few professional insiders with a conviction that to get
a really special instrument you had to forget about music stores. They were predominantly
from immigrant stock: Michael Gurian, Armenian; Guillermo (William) Del Pilar, Manuel
Velazquez, and Efrain Ronda, Puerto Rican; John D'Angelico, Italian; Jose Rubio, British;
Freddy Mejias, Mexican. But they were some Anglo home-boys too, like Gene Clark and Lucian
Barnes. It was the dawn of my own career. In my eyes, these men were magnificent, sealed
vaults of guitarmaking technique, the keepers of the secrets. Nowadays, however, there are
no more guitar-making secrets. Aspiring makers today have at their disposal a virtual
avalanche of sources and endless pathways into their own field of dreams. In 1968,
however, save for Irving Sloane's slender book and a few pamphlets, there was scant
guidance to be found in libraries or bookstores. There were just two purveyors of
string-instrument woods and tools in New York: curt and tight-lipped people who didn't
want to bother with me. And as for the handful of makers in New York City (and the fewer
still elsewhere): none had the time or cared to talk to me, either. So, I stalked Gurian
and Del Pilar--much in the same manner, I later discovered, as Gurian and Larrivee had
earlier stalked Velazquez and Rubio, Richard Schneider had elsewhere stalked Pimentel and
Jimmy D'Aquisto had pursued D'Angelico. I appeared at my unwilling avatars' door and
stared over their counters for hours trying to peek at what they did, trying to guess what
the odd-shaped jigs hanging from the wall were supposed to do--until told to leave. Then I
showed up again the next Saturday, and the next. I bothered them and their co-workers,
ingratiating some, becoming a nuisance to others. Then, my break came: Michael Gurian had
the notion to conduct a small guitar-making evening course at the Crafts Students League.
I heard about it and signed up. A doorway into the rarified field of professional
luthierie opened and let me in. Except for John D'Angelico and his small crew, the New
York luthiers of the early sixties all made guitars in the "spanish style"--
what, according to the New York Classic Guitar Society, had been termed
"classic" guitars on the pages of their magazine, the Guitar Review, for the
first time barely a decade earlier. The Spanish Guitar hailed from a five hundred-year
tradition of small shops and individual producers. In stark contrast, the steel-string
guitar was a creature of the Machine Age, of the Industrial Revolution in the United
States. "Steelstrings" were the province of the large shops like Martin, Guild,
Gretsch; and the large factories, like Gibson and Harmony. Their clout was so enormous,
that no one in their right mind would ever think of making them one at a time for a
living. There was no tradition in America of individually-handcrafted steel-string
flat-top guitars. At least, not until the mid-sixties, when several Tennessee woodworkers,
some New York craftsmen, and a Serb from Chicago began one. In Tennessee, a
furniture-maker and classic-guitarmaking buff called Hascal Haile began to make
steel-string flat-top guitars using many of the Spanish-method techniques he knew.At about
the same time, a small band of skilled craftsmen and guitar-freaks coalesced in New York's
Greenwich Village. They started taking Martins apart, fixing them, changing them. They
were named Marc Silber, Ivon Shmuckler, and Matt Umanov. Following San Francisco repairman
Jon Lundberg's lead, they cut the tops off old arch-top Martins (oddball, unsatisfying
instruments that these were) and re- topped them with X-braced flat soundboards. The
result: an instrument magnificently suited for blues-ragtime music in the Blind Blake,
Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Reverend Gary Davis tradition. These guitars were picked up by
popular blues-ragtime fingerpickers in New York City (the form was later recreated by
Martin as their M-series). After having dissected, evaluated, and reassembled many, many
Martins, these dedicated, Martin-loving craftsmen started, by the end of the sixties, to
make finely-wrought, personalized recreations of Martin designs on their own work tables.
About the same time, on Grand Street (also in New York), Michael Gurian began producing
classically-inspired steelstrings in a small five-worker studio. Coincidentally, an
immigrant yugoslavian instrument maker, working as a repairman in a large Chicago music
house decided he could build guitars better than the ones he was repairing. His name was
Bozo Podunavac. The field of flat- top steel-string luthierie had begun in earnest. Before
long Gallagher, Randy Wood, Bernardo Rico, Michael Gurian (who had relocated to New
Hampshire), Augie LoPrinzi, Stuart Mossman, Bozo Podunavac (who relocated to California)
then others, were producing Martin-inspired instruments-- and novel new designs of their
own-- in small production shops all around the country. None of these shops survive today,
yet they paved the way for their now-well-established modern counterparts: Santa Cruz,
Taylor, and Collings. Many workers who learned the ropes in those early shops, this author
included, later peeled off and started building guitars on their own. Some who survived
are among the most prominent luthiers today. Their numbers have proliferated, and there is
hardly a state in the Union without at least one or two fine, individual makers selling
steel-strings-- or classics for that matter-- to the general public. The individually-made
arch-top jazz-guitar evolved in a similar manner, although the divergence of the craft
from factory to small- shop/luthier industry occurred earlier. Orville Gibson, a
shoe-store- salesman turned luthier, invented the arch-top after fusing cello and guitar.
His successors evolved the archtop into a mass-produced, factory instrument. During the
thirties and forties (as was to later happen with the steelstring), a small group of
individual craftsmen, mostly trained violin makers, became inspired by this
factory-oriented guitar design. They then "de-evolved" the form by making them
like they once did in the Old Country. The Stromberg, Epi Stathopolous and D'Angelico
workshops recalled many of the pre-Industrial-Revolution ateliers, such as the Staufer and
Panormo workshops--the sort in which Martin had apprenticed in the previous century.
Today, their heirs: D'Aquisto, Monteleone, Benedetto, Nickerson, Grimes, Anderson, et al,
have taken the torch from these earlier giants. In their hands, individually-made
arch-tops have come to rival the finest factory archtops Gibson--or any of the older
luthiers--ever made. Best known among these makers is Jimmy D'Aquisto. Many would describe
him as the fountainhead of the present-day scene. As Massachusetts arch-top maker Brad
Nickerson notes, "there is a resurgence in interest in archtop guitars now, and a
number of people building them. I don't think any of this would be happening if it hadn't
been for Jimmy's perseverance and love for these instruments, and his belief in their
versatility and viability for today's music." Although steelstring luthierie has been
evolving in dramatic ways since the sixties, very little has noticeably changed for makers
building in the Spanish Style. Save for one or two attempts to establish production lines
in New York to produce classic guitars during the sixties and into the seventies--all
which eventually failed--the field remained dominated, as always, by individual
makers--and as it still is to this day. As classical luthier Alan Chapman puts it,
"we have a long tradition of individual makers. Its a solo instrument-solo maker
world, with a long-established rapport between the two." The ranks of notable
classical-guitar makers have swelled, however, in recent years. A short list of the finest
individual makers working today might include Manuel Velazquez, John Gilbert, Jeffrey
Elliott, Dwayne Waterman, Tom Humphrey, Alan Chapman, and R.E. Brune. There are others,
however. For the most part their gurus are dead guitar-makers: men with names like Torres,
Ramirez, Fleta, and Hauser. These silent giants speak to their modern successors through
the few instruments they made which still survive, or which have been documented. Classic
builders working today have no living gurus, save perhaps for Manuel Velazquez. Don
Manuel, of Puerto Rican descent, is in his mid-seventies and is argueably the greatest
living classical-guitar maker. Productive as ever, he is still making among the finest
instruments ever made in his one-man workshop in Florida, at a rate of one or two per
month. Indeed, Puerto Ricans have long held a commanding reputation in the classical
guitar field. Manuel Velazquez, Guillermo Del Pilar, and Fidencio Diaz started the
tradition in the mid-forties, fifties, and sixties. Of these, Velazquez and Diaz remain
active--and at the top of their form Their descendants, the current crop of younger,
notable Puerto Rican luthiers includes Miguel Acevedo, Manuel Rodriguez, and German
Velazquez, all working on the island, but selling instruments in the U.S.

HOW ARE THEY DIFFERENT?

So what, precisely, makes this special category of guitars so different from the rest?
To start with, they are made individually, by individual artisans. The individual maker
leaves a unique imprint on each instrument. Hand- work exhibits slight variations,
intended or not, between each sample. The quest for perfect uniformity, although a goal in
large production, is rarely the luthier's goal. Optimization of design usually is. Indeed,
knowledgeable buyers of fine handcraft are not perturbed by small irregularities and
inconsistencies. Rather than a sign of lower value, small char marks on the interior
surfaces of sides bent over a hot pipe or small tool marks left on the interior braces are
but irrefutable evidence of the primacy of the human hand in the process-- and thus
valuable in and of themselves. Although cuts made by the hand-held tool are variable and
inconsistent (compared to the ones made by the power-tool), a single mind behind
conception, design, and execution brings to the guitar a special type of consistency, a
unique integration of all the elements of the instrument. Luthier Grit Laskin puts it
thus: "In terms of sound, one pair of hands guided by one experienced brain has the
ability to pull more musical subtleties out of the material." This kind of
consistency is unlikely to exist on instruments designed by a committee, and fabricated by
the sum efforts of a dozen workers. Take wood selection, for example. A worker on the line
in a guitar factory, will simply take a soundboard or a back off a stack to put on the
next guitar. In contrast, consider arch-top luthier Brad Nickerson's approach: "I
especially take to heart the idea that you need to work with and be sensitive to the
particular piece of wood at hand. Its a difficult lesson. We like to arrive at formulas
and think we've discovered something; but its really a different experience with each
instrument. You can't do this in your sleep." Are individual-made guitars
"better" than production-line instruments? This comparison can be tricky to
make. Certainly, a veteran, skilled luthier can bring a degree of attention,
concentration, and experience to the various crucial steps in the construction of a fine
instrument--and thus a level of overall quality-- which cannot easily be equalled on a
production line instrument. Twenty or thirty years of experience and skill is generally
quite rare, in luthiery as it is in every other arena. The fact is too, that there do
exist a number of smaller production lines in which the level of joinery and finish is
probably as refined as can be achieved anywhere, on any level. A luthier's joinery and
surface finish can be brilliant on one or several guitars, but less-so on the another.
Personal stress, economic factors come into play. Certainly, individual makers are not
gods and, as individuals, their work may not be as consistent as factory-mades coming off
the production line. But is this necessarily the highest goal of guitarmaking--or is
performance, responsiveness, musicality? Broadly speaking, it would be wrong to assume
that just because an instrument is individually made, it will be less trouble-free than a
similar production line instrument. Problems with cracks, neck angles, frets, dog
individually-made instruments perhaps only slightly less frequently as on your average
Martin, Gibson- - or Washburn-- for that matter. Does a Maserati spend less time in the
shop than a Ford? Massachusetts Classical luthier Alan Chapman says, "factories
aren't willing to take the risk to build as lightly, or the time to select materials as
carefully, in order to successfully build lighter," implying that many hand-made
instruments are more fragile-- and thus, perhaps, more breakable, than their
production-line counterparts. The difference is that you know who is personally
responsible, and that more often than not, that person is highly motivated to resolve your
complaint: a reputation, in a word-of-mouth market, hinges on your good graces.

The personal interaction between player and maker is what makes the individually-made
instrument most unique. The interaction you will experience varies with the style,
approach and personality of each maker. There is no established common modus operandi, no
set rules to the luthier/customer exchange. You simply have to ask the makers if they keep
guitars on hand for sale, or if they make to order, as well as other ground rules--such as
delivery, payment, and warranty responsibility --since they usually vary significantly
from builder to builder. But, this often is the most thrilling part of buying a hand- made
guitar: seeing the builder in his or her own work environment; talking to the builder,
explaining what you want; waiting for the mystery to take place. Then, the guitar is born,
at its own slow pace-- your very own exclusive instrument. It certainly is a relationship
which exists on a different plane from buying a guitar from a salesperson in a store,
plunking your money down on the counter and walking out with it. In some traditions,
however, luthiers will not make one for you: Classical luthier Miguel Acevedo describes
the interaction that occurs in traditional spanish luthieries. "A maker will make the
guitars that he wants to make, in the style and manner most familiar to him. He'll build
up a small inventory of instruments. Then the maker grades them and prices them according
to quality of results. If you're shopping, you visit the maker, and he'll bring out Model
A. You try it out, and buy it if you like it. If it doesn't suit you, he'll suggest that
perhaps you might like Model B, a beauty that sells for a slightly higher price. You might
be delighted. If not, how about my Model C? ...and so forth until you reach the very best
model at the highest price. Come back in a couple of months, and there's likely to be a
different crop." Likewise, a number of prominent american luthiers will only have you
chose between several pre-designed models, or simply they will only build the instruments
THEY want to make, and you may chose among them. On the other hand, most modern makers
will make a guitar for you, Some will allow you a only a limited number of options: size
A, B, or C; spruce or cedar soundboard; simple or fancy ornamentation; internal pickup or
not. At that's it. Other luthiers offer extensive custom design services. They are
familiar with a broad variety of guitar types and designs. They are willing to spend an
hour or two with you, hammering out in thorough detail, an exquisitely precise form which,
in an exemplary manner, fits your hand, your eye, and the instrument's intended musical
environment. They are expert in ascertaining the kind of instrument you want, assuming you
know what you want. If you DON'T know what you want, they're become very good at teaching
you how to arrive at a choice which is most appropriate for you. Among the best and most
perceptive custom builders working today is steel-string luthier Michael Millard. He
describes the way he sets up a commission like this: "Most people see a guitar in the
hands of a professional player, and then contact me, inquiring about the possibility of a
guitar of their own. Usually, they end up coming to my shop. Most people have a limited
knowledge related to the basic components of guitar design-- including very fine players.
A lot of people just don't realize what differences exist between fundamental ingredients
such as scale, wood selection, soundbox size. These must be explained. So, it becomes my
job to explain these basic components of design, and distinguish them clearly from choices
of ornamentation. I extract from them descriptions of what they like and don't like in
other guitars. Soon, there is definition of terms that becomes common to both of us.
People come to me because I can make them a guitar as good as the guitar that they
envision. This requires high-grade communication and an approach to building which, in
terms of design, is broad and flexible. Because production companies and small builders
alike have generally built to fairly homogenized designs, most players don't realize the
possibilities available in a true custom design process. Custom has come to mean
ornamentation, rather than performance and function. I build a specialized instrument
around a specific set of criteria, and the result is that the instrument is extremely
satisfying to that player." John Monteleone, like Millard, builds pre-designed
models, and custom builds also. Like Millard, he works to get custom clients to verbalize
their preferences. "The first question I ask is, 'what are you playing now, and what
DON'T you like about it?' Usually these are the kind of details they readily know. It's
more difficult for them to describe what they're looking FOR. But regardless, in the end
it turns are that what they're all looking for is pretty much the same thing: a guitar
with balance, sustain, easy response, power and projection-- but with subtle differences.
And that's where we come in. We're like tailors."

Usually, you must pay up front for a portion of the cost, and the balance is due upon
presentation. In some cases, a third-third-third arrangement: One-third deposit up front
to put your commission on the work schedule, one third when the work is actually begun,
and a third when it's delivered. When you visit a luthier there may be a sample guitar or
two available to try out. Don't be dismayed, however: just as often the maker has nothing
to show, because "they leave the shop as soon as they are made." This may seem a
little scary, but it is not at all unusual in the luthiery trade. If you're dropping three
grand on a guitar, the background assumption is that you've already done your homework:
that you've shown up in this particular maker's shop only after already having learned of
his or her work, reputation, and style-- usually from other players. Grit Laskin describes
how he interacts with his customers: "Private order buyers first contact me by phone
or mail. Primarily they come to me because they've already seen or heard my instruments.
Often they want something like they've heard, but just as often they have all kinds of
specific needs. They ask, can you do these things I require? They inquire about neck
shape, sound specifics, ornamentation, alternate wood species. Steelstring, Classic, and
Flamenco players, each have different sets of needs. I explain what I can do, what they
can reasonably expect from me--in terms of what I can deliver. There is an understanding
that they are building upon my approach to instruments, or they wouldn't have come through
my door." ...and they better be prepared to dig deeply into their pockets.
Individually made guitars aren't cheap: expect to pay 15% to 20% more for a hand built
than for a Martin or Taylor's LIST prices on a similarly-appointed instrument.
Individually-made steelstring flat-top prices average from $2000 to $3500 with the very
top makers commanding as much as $4000. Top-quality classics and arch-tops, perhaps due to
their smaller markets, get more: $3500 to $5000, with the top makers commanding as much as
$10,000. Before you assume that these builders a price-gouging, stop to consider how many
instruments they make a year: 12 to 24 on the average. And what the overhead costs are to
supply and maintain a studio: $20- $30,000 a year. As high as they may seem, these prices
are still less than vintage instruments, and classics by dead makers, which can command
$15-$25,000 and even higher. Remember, too that dead makers such as Fleta and D'Angelico,
were once live makers, like today's crop of better builders. ...and they better be
prepared to wait. I don't know a single professional luthier that can deliver a guitar to
a customer today in less than six months. Indeed, the norm for many of the builders quoted
here is over a year, and some people are prepared to wait five, six, even ten years for
the many prominent luthiers. Please note, however, that the length of the wait often--but
doesn't always--betray the quality of the instruments or the skill of the makers that you
are waiting for. Other factors come into play. Sometimes lightning strikes a young
luthier: recent media exposure of a celebrity playing a little- known-maker's guitar can
swamp him or her with work. Some builders make their guitars in a leisurely, un-rushed
fashion and thus produce no more than five or six instruments a year. Others may be far
more energetic and efficient,

and produce two, or even three a month. Your turn is likely to come up more quickly
with the latter, than with the former. So don't jump to conclusions. The work must speak
for itself. But regardless of the unique beauty and playability of the instruments, and
regardless of the fascinating interaction with the maker, many players simply do not find
the wait and the uncertainty of paying for an unseen guitar as something they want to put
up with. For them, going to a Martin dealer, or to an acoustic shop and picking up a Santa
Cruz, or a Taylor, or a Collings is the better option--and for the overwhelming number of
high-end acoustic-guitar buyers, the only option. But this is changing now too. More and
more, stores are buying or consigning guitars from individual makers. The number of
large-city music stores and acoustic guitar parlors hanging Millards, Nickersons, Laskins,
and Chapmans on their walls--usually in separate, reserved areas or behind glass-- is
growing at an astounding rate. Recently, a large mail-order musical instrument dealer has
broken new ground. Elderly Instruments, one of the largest mail-order instrument-catalog
houses in the U.S. has made a bold commitment to the luthiery craft: their recent
catalogue is featuring, for sale, the work of several notable individual luthiers. From an
arcane, esoteric craft to mail- order catalogue item: who would deny that the ancient
luthier's trade has entered the mainstream, and come of age?

---------------------------------------

Box Inset A: What's in it for them?

What motivates these diligent artisans to pursue such an exhausting, and elusive craft.
The very best among them perhaps clears $30 -50,000 a year, barely a middle-class income
nowadays, and this after dedicating a lifetime to the craft. So what's really in it for
them? MANUEL VELAZQUEZ, after forty-five years of guitar-making, "It is like a poison
that enters your blood and never goes away. I am still a student, still in awe of the
instrument and it's possibilities." GRIT LASKIN explains: "It blends my two
loves together: music and working with wood. Once I got involved in the challenge of
creating music out of chunks of trees, I clicked in, permanently. After twenty one years,
it remains addictive. Comparatively speaking, its not lucrative, but you can't stop.
Always, the next one is going to be better." MICHAEL MILLARD explains his commitment
to the craft: The idea of dealing with a broad range of skills which involve woodworking,
communication skills, artistic skills and alchemy, remains continually challenging. I'm
perennially rewarded by the directness of the process and the clarity of the results Most
handbuilders like to pin a design down that works and clone it forever. What I enjoy,
however, is sorting out a group of diverse and sometimes conflicting criteria that a
player brings, and synthesizing a workable design which satisfies all those expectations,
and more. I treasure the freedom that this kind of work allows. I get to make my own
schedule, I come and go as I please. It affords me flexibility and freedom." ALAN
CHAPMAN jokes,"I started off trying to be a player but my legs went to sleep in
proper playing position. I like to move around a little more, and I like less cerebral
activity: I enjoy the physicality. Yes, you do make sacrifices, it is not a big
money-making proposition. But I like involving myself with the aesthetics, the sound, the
looks, constantly revising, constantly thinking about it. I love the competitive aspect: I
love seeing someone's really fine instrument, and trying to do it better." BRAD
NICKERSON enjoys interacting with musicians. "I make guitars for players. On the
level of the craft itself, it is tremendously satisfying to have an idea and see it
through to completion, and then to have it appreciation by fine musician. A big part of my
satisfaction with this work is feeling that I've created something that a musician can use
to further his or her creativity." JOHN MONTELEONE says, "trying to take wood
and translate it into a musical instrument is an enormous, satisfying, challenge-- a
challenge that is ongoing. When I finish one instrument, I'm already thinking of the next.
There's always a great anticipation. Guitarmaking is like great sex, like an unending love
affair."

It was once easy, in common conversation, to differentiate "hand- made"
instruments from all the rest. The rest were "factory" or "production"
guitars. Everyone knew what you were talking about. Like other hot-button, selling words
(like "natural," and "organic") "hand-made" has been
appropriated--and mis-appropriated--by marketing and sales departments over the years to
describe...just about anything. More often now than ever, luthiers are seeing their
traditional right to use the term challenged by the industry--for some reasons, no doubt,
that are justifiable--but for cynical ones as well. Yes, "hands" do make all
guitars. Manuel Velazquez' hands build a dozen and a half guitars per year--hands aided by
a table saw, band saw and a drill press. C.F. Martin's neck-carvers skillfully carve
thousands of necks a year, by hand, for Martin guitars. For that matter, the workers who
assemble and box fifteen thousand guitars a month in Korea do so...with their hands. Large
factories, taking their cue from luthiers, are now setting aside parts of their production
and giving it over to in-house "custom shops," where skilled employees work to
satisfy customer's individual predilections--usually in detail and appointments. So the
boundaries between "hand-" and "machine-made" are fuzzy indeed, and
getting more so each day. So the term "hand-made" or "hand-crafted" to
remain useful, ought to be more strictly defined. Here I propose that to be
"hand-made," an instrument must be made in an environment in which the primacy
of hand tools is un-arguable. Power tools, when used, are used only to ensure accuracy
during certain crucial steps in the process--as long as their use doesn't determine,
change or compromise the original design. I propose the term "individually-made
guitar" to distinguish an instrument that is designed by its actual maker, and whose
parts are made up from the raw material and then individually voiced, assembled, finished
and strung by that maker or by assistants trained by the maker. Finally, by these
standards, a "luthier" is a solo-artisan who makes individually hand-crafted
guitars.